EllRay Jakes Walks the Plank!

Written
by Sally Warner Illustrated by Brian Biggs

Reviewed by Adrian W. (age 9)

In the book Ellray Jakes Walks the Plank!, Ellray’s little sister, Alfie, accidentally kills Zip, the class goldfish, and when Ellray goes to school on Monday, everyone asks where Zip is, and Ellray has to take the blame. To make things worse, Cynthia does bad things and frames Ellray for them. After Cynthia does these things, she talks to Ellray and tells him to take the blame and says it’s because she is perfect (which isn’t true) and because Ellray killed Zip (but that is also not true). So, Ms. Sanchez asks Ellray to come to her classroom during lunch. They talked for most of lunch and … oops! I can’t tell you what happens! Read the book to find out!

I think parts of this book are funny because Ellray is taking care of the class pet at home which is a fish, and when the fish dies, really hysterical things happen. For example, the fish tank is well decorated and when the fish dies, Alfie states, “But we get to keep the castle. And the sparkle rock, too” and Ellray says, “It’s called a geode, and no, we don’t.” I like Ellray because he cares a lot for his sister. He told a lie because he didn’t want Alfie to feel bad and everyone to get mad at her. I have a connection with Ellray because I also care a lot for my sister. I feel bad for Ellray because he is forced by Cynthia to take the blame for her every time she does something wrong. When they were playing at recess, Cynthia fell and told the principal Ellray did it.

I recommend Ellray Jakes Walks the Plank! to grades 2 to 5 because it is kind of easy to read. Parts of this book are hysterical, like when Cynthia scraped her knee and said having two rocket ship band-aids ruined her outfit. So, I think kids who like funny stories would like this book.